KLRU will present a special night of local programing on April 19th as part of ourLight / The Holocaust & Humanity Project events. In honor of Yom HaShoah, the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust, we’ll be showing:

Overheard with Evan Smith at 7 pm
Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel talks with Evan Smith on Overheard. Wiesel is a well-known voice for tolerance and justice worldwide. Wiesel spent part of his childhood in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and eventually published the memoir Night. Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, and established a foundation that fights intolerance and promotes justice. He teaches at Boston University, and has written more than 50 books.

Arts In Context: Producing Light at 7:30 pm
Arts in Context spends a month with Ballet Austin, as Artistic Director Stephen Mills and company produce a re-staging of the acclaimed Light/ Holocaust and Humanity Project. With unprecedented access to the dancers and staff on and off the stage, Producer/ Director Karen Bernstein and Cinematographer Deborah Lewis provide a unique look into production for Mills’ harrowing work on survival amidst a climate of indifference and hate.

Spark at 8:30 pm
Gerda Weissmann Klein draws from her wealth of life experiences: from surviving the Holocaust and meeting her future husband on the day of her liberation, to her journey to the United States, accepting an Oscar and Emmy for a documentary based on her life, and her constant fight to promote tolerance, encourage community service and combat hunger. Taped in front of a live audience as part of KLRU’s Spark speaker series on March 20, 2012. Watch the Weissmann Klein talk here:

As a lead partner in Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project, KLRU is honored to work alongside Ballet Austin and Anti-Defamation League-Austin in convening our community partners and thousands across this city in a public dialogue.

On April 12th, KLRU presents Civic Summit: Creating A Community of Respect, a live television event at 7:30 pm. Moderator Tom Spencer, CEO of Interfaith Action of Central Texas, will host a discussion with Art Acevedo, Chief of Police Austin Police Department; Muna Hussaini, Community Activist; and Karen Gross, Austin Community Director Anti-Defamation League. RSVPs are still open for our live studio audience.

Later this month, KLRU will present an evening of special programming in honor of Yom HaShoah, The Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust. Thursday, April 19, at 7 pm, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel talks with Evan Smith on Overheard. At 7:30 pm, award-winning documentarian Karen Bernstein and the KLRU crew brings viewers Arts In Context Producing Light. This documentary focuses on Ballet Austin’s Stephen Mills as he produces the story of Naomi Warren, a Holocaust survivor in Houston, and how performing in this ballet has impacted the dancers. At 8:30 pm, Oscar-award winner and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Gerda Weissmann Klein tells her inspiring story.
Here’s a short behind-the-scenes video of Arts In Context.

Moderator Tom Spencer, CEO of Interfaith Action of Central Texas, will host live television event. Panelists will include Art Acevedo, Chief of Police Austin Police Department; Muna Hussaini, Community Activist; and Karen Gross, Austin Community Director Anti-Defamation League. Civic Summit: Creating A Community of Respect is part of the citywide Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project.

Thursday, April 12th in KLRU’s Studio 6A (map)
6:30 pm Doors open
7:15 pm Everyone must be seated to get instructions about this live broadcast
7:30 pm Live broadcast begins airing on KLRU
8:30 pm event ends

Elie Wiesel, renowned author and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is a well-known voice for tolerance and justice worldwide. Wiesel spent part of his childhood in the Auschwitz concentration camp. He survived his time at Auschwitz, but lost both of his parents and his younger sister. Wiesel wrote about his memories from the Holocaust and eventually published them in “Night,” his critically acclaimed memoir. Since its publication in 1960, “Night” has become an international bestseller translated into 30 languages. Wiesel has written more than 50 fiction and non-fiction books and established the Elie Wiesel Foundation, which combats intolerance and promotes understanding in countries around the world. He also teaches at Boston University.

We hope you’ll be there as Overheard with Evan Smith continues a second season of great conversation with fascinating people, always on the news and always with a sense of humor. The show features in-depth interviews with a mix of guests from politics, the arts, literature, journalism, business, sports and more, and reaches PBS viewers from California to Florida. We’d love to see you in the studio for the interview, and for a chance to join the audience Q&A after the interview.

KLRU will produce television and web content related to Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project and will host Gerda Weissmann Klein as part of Spark on March 20th. During February, KLRU will have special programming each Sunday at 1 pm. The programs will be:

2/5 Irena Sendler: In The Name Of Their Mothers
During WWII, a group of young Polish women, some barely out of their teens, outfoxed the Nazis and rescued thousands of Jewish children from certain death. Over half a century later, 95-year-old Irena Sendler tells the true story, long suppressed in Communist Poland, of this daring conspiracy of women who risked their lives in the name of Warsaw’s Jewish mothers.

2/12 Not In Our Town: Light In The Darkness
In 2008 in Patchogue, NY, a series of attacks against Latino residents ended with the killing of 37-year-old Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant who had lived there for 13 years. Seven local high school students arrested for the crime admitted they were “looking for a Mexican” to beat up. Over a two-year period, the film followed Patchogue Mayor Paul Pontieri as he led a diverse group of residents to confront the anti-immigrant bias in their town and repair the fabric of their community life. The victim’s brother, Joselo Lucero, and other Latino residents became leading voices for immigrants while working within the community to address local divisions. Faith leaders mobilized their congregations, and educators and school administrators developed anti-bias programs.

2/19 Not In Our Town: Class Actions
This program tells the stories of a suburban California school district, a mid-western college town and a college campus in the heart of the South where people are working together to stop hate and intolerance, and activitating their communities to create safer, more accepting environments for everyone. “Not In Our Town: Class Actions” profiles local innovators — a teacher who starts an anti-bullying program at her school, then spreads it to five districts; diverse leaders in a college town who bring students, local officials and community members together after a wave of bias attacks; and a coalition of students who take positive action when their core values are threatened. Also airs Feb. 13 at 9 pm

2/26 Teenage Witness: The Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Story
In 1941, the Nazis asserted their power by overrunning tiny villages throughout Eastern Europe. In the middle of the horror and chaos stood 15-year-old Fanya Gottesfeld (Heller). Only through the kindness of a Polish peasant did Fanya survive – hidden beneath a chicken coop with her parents and brother for two-and-a-half years. Based on her acclaimed memoir, Love In A World of Sorrow, this documentary presents a raw and emotional look at survival and the tenacity of the human spirit. Richard Gere narrates. Fanya’s story differs from other Holocaust narratives because of her relationship with a Ukrainian soldier – a Nazi collaborator who helped save her family from certain death. However, this relationship left Fanya with questions she continues to struggle with today. Since the book’s publication in 1993, the Holocaust survivor has dedicated her life to spreading a message of hope to audiences young and old. Today, Fanya shares the details of her ordeal with inner-city teens in the hopes of making them understand, and even relate to, the difficult choices she made. The atrocities of the Holocaust occurred more than 60 years ago, but its lessons of courage and tolerance and the dangers of prejudice and baseless hatred remain relevant today. At the age of 83, Fanya contemplates a return to her hometown of Skala, in present-day Ukraine, accompanied by Father Patrick Desbois, the French-Catholic priest responsible for identifying more than 600 previously unknown graves of Jews. The film follows Fanya as she wrestles with the past and focuses on the importance of her work today.